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This tactic of the game was hard for me to master and at first I failed many times. I carried my business cards only in my briefcase, because I thought they were only used in business. Wrong! I missed quite a few opportunities to toot my horn because of that misconception. Not only did I miss the opportunity, but when it did arise, I looked like an amateur. Here’s what happen on one of those occasions.One day while standing in a bank line waiting to make a deposit – by the way, it was the merchant bank line; a nicely dressed gentleman noticed I had several checks from different companies. He asked about my occupation. I cheerfully explained my business and quali

A Real Time Case Study On How to Fail
I am going to relate this true story out of a sense of frustration. Hopefully, my experience, and disappointment at seeing a wonderful opportunity torched by sloppiness, will enlighten others to maximize the chance to succeed in their chosen endeavor. Great ideas need to be properly fertilized, cultured and harvested. Taking shortcuts always results in failure.My consulting firm reviews hundreds of new product ideas, inventions and small business projects each and every year. We have been doing so for over two decades. Very few of the deals we review ever become commercial realities. However, many more of these have real, exciting, but unrealized potential. That is the

MySpace for Your Small Business - It's Not Just for Teenagers Anymore!
It was not so long ago when I was watching my nephews eagerly upload their MySpace pictures and create their profiles. All the rave with teenagers and music bands, MySpace has becomeso much more!It is now the mecca of small business owners and networkers the world over!MySpace, like Ryze.com and others,allows you to create a profile, share some pictures and add a bit about your interests. You can even post to your own blog and upload music for "your sound" when people click on your home page.Now I konw some of you are already shaking your head "no" because you've heard some of the negative publicity surrounding MySpace, or you think it's just for fun.ors are prevents your company from being blind sided by the same events that can demolish other companies in your business. Go ahead. Try to put a name to each of the types. The pain should start about the third one.

First there’s the Look-alike competitor. They do exactly what you do for the same set of customers. These are the top of mind companies your sales people watch on a minute-by-minute basis. These are also the companies sales forces are most concerned about because the customer always uses them as a point of comparison. As a result of product management pressure from one side and sales force demand from the other, marketers spend most of their time responding to the actions of the look-alike set. Write down the names of your look alike competitors.

The Extensive competitor could do what your company does, if only it chose to. Extensives have the resources and expertise to move into your market but instead are listening to Sun Tzu and avoiding direct confrontation with a rival. No, the Extesnsive competitor serves a different market for the same type product. Cadillac doesn’t make tiny econo-box cars, but they have all they need to so anytime. They meet their financial goals but essentially without provoking a response from companies that do make econo-cars. It might take some head scratching but you can probably come up with one or two companies to fit this profile.

The Innovative competitor spells real trouble. These are the companies that completely change the rules of your market overnight. Barnes and Noble discounted Amazon.com because they saw t

nute basis. These are also the companies sales forces are most concerned about because the customer always uses them as a point of comparison. As a result of product management pressure from one side and sales force demand from the other, marketers spend most of their time responding to the actions of the look-alike set. Write down the names of your look alike competitors.

The Extensive competitor could do what your company does, if only it chose to. Extensives have the resources and expertise to move into your market but instead are listening to Sun Tzu and avoiding direct confrontation with a rival. No, the Extesnsive competitor serves a different market for the same type product. Cadillac doesn’t make tiny econo-box cars, but they have all they need to so anytime. They meet their financial goals but essentially without provoking a response from companies that do make econo-cars. It might take some head scratching but you can probably come up with one or two companies to fit this profile.

The Innovative competitor spells real trouble. These are the companies that completely change the rules of your market overnight. Barnes and Noble discounted Amazon.com because they saw t

or could do what your company does, if only it chose to. Extensives have the resources and expertise to move into your market but instead are listening to Sun Tzu and avoiding direct confrontation with a rival. No, the Extesnsive competitor serves a different market for the same type product. Cadillac doesn’t make tiny econo-box cars, but they have all they need to so anytime. They meet their financial goals but essentially without provoking a response from companies that do make econo-cars. It might take some head scratching but you can probably come up with one or two companies to fit this profile.

The Innovative competitor spells real trouble. These are the companies that completely change the rules of your market overnight. Barnes and Noble discounted Amazon.com because they saw t

ial goals but essentially without provoking a response from companies that do make econo-cars. It might take some head scratching but you can probably come up with one or two companies to fit this profile.

The Innovative competitor spells real trouble. These are the companies that completely change the rules of your market overnight. Barnes and Noble discounted Amazon.com because they saw them as just another look-alike. Since both buy books from the same printers Barnes and Noble knew that the online upstart wouldn’t get a much of a better price, if at all. But Amazon was really competing on innovation in logistics- book shopping in bunny slippers. Barnes missed this one completely and took more than a year to their online store up and running. In the late 70’sXerox dominated the copier market. Xerox’ main selling point was its huge field service force and distributed parts warehouses that guaranteed no copier would be down for more than four hours. Sharp entered the market with copiers that made four times as many impressions before needing service at all, using innovation to take away Xerox’s prime advantage.

In order to monitor the innovative competitor, look to sources within the scientific community, or university research projects (and the companies funding them.) As a mental exercise, imagine waking up tomorrow and your product is obsolete. What has replaced it? Better think about who is developing it, because if it isn’t you it is someone else.

There are three other types of competitor often missed by both startups and market leaders. Even though they don’t sell products to the your customer base their actions enhance or impede the success of your company.

Resource competitors use the same materials and talent as you do, but offer different products to a different market. They have nothing to do with your business other than demanding the same supplies. But the stock Java programmers, oil, genetic material, frozen peas and lumber are limited, therefore